Sunday, August 21, 2016

LOONY TUNES no. 163

“That in turn led to an exodus to the U.S. and, with it, some of the ideas that characterize the American mindset to this day. Slipping seamlessly from continent to continent and century to century in Chavkin’s fluid production (complete with country-folk interventions by the onstage band), the play suggests the spirit of free enterprise, exemplified by the “invisible hand” theory of Scottish economist Adam Smith, has led to desolation in the Scottish countryside and environmental ruin in the coalfields of West Virginia.”

Comment

Usual nonsense about Adam Smith’s use of the “invisible hand” metaphor. Compare with Bill Dunlop’s review of the same play in LOST LEGACY's Roll of Honour, no. 2.

“And perhaps more importantly, the Philippines has been granted another round of good luck by the invisible hand of the global economic system in the form of low borrowing costs and ample liquidity that are expected to continue over the medium term.

COMMENT

"low borrowing costs and ample liquidity" are decided by the motivated actions of individuals not by a metaphoric "invisible hand" that does not exist. Metaphors describe their objects: see Adam Smith's Lectures in Rhetoric and Belles Lettres in a manuscript discovered in 1962, consisting of student notes taken down from Smith's Lectures in 1762-63, published by Oxford University Press in 1983.

“Economist Adam Smith, who wrote the legendary book An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations – published, appropriately enough, the year this country was born – talked about the “invisible hand” of individual self-interest that drives free economies as the moon influences the tides.

It is, in short, human nature that directs the economy of a free people.”